The market was boosted by big caps focusing on flat panels and semiconductors after Taipei said it could ease controls on high-tech investments in China by local companies while allowing further Chinese investments in Taiwan.

The Bureau of Foreign Trade said Taiwan’s China-bound exports would recover next month and the rest of the year. Export orders from China started to return to positive territory in July, bureau director-general Huang Chih-peng (黃志鵬) told a media briefing.

Huang said the ministry intends to spend 25 percent of the annual trade promotion fund, from the current 15 percent, on sponsoring trade shows and other activities to help raise name recognition of Taiwan makers in China.

Huang said the promotion campaigns will target second-tier cities like Nanjing and Wuhan. The image improvement program can also help boost competitiveness of domestic products after Taiwan and China sign an economic cooperation framework agreement, he said.

AUO sells UMC shares

AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), Taiwan’s largest maker of liquid-crystal displays, sold 22 million shares of United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s second-largest custom-chip maker, for NT$346 million, the Hsinchu-based company said in an exchange filing yesterday.

AU Optronics sold the shares at an average price of NT$15.72 and made a profit of NT$113.8 million, the statement said.

Fubon cancels capital plan

Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) will cancel a capital enhancement plan because of changes in market conditions and the company’s finance plans, the company said in a stock exchange filing yesterday.

Last month, Fubon announced it would issue Global Depositary Receipts to increase its working capital and strengthen its finances. The company had planned to raise up to US$900 million through the issuance of new shares.

Demand for the initial public offerings’ retail tranche was high with shares in the firms, which range from software to medical equipment makers, oversubscribed by 82 to 258 times, filings to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange said.

The institutional tranche of the initial public offerings (IPO) the firms were oversubscribed by 35 to 117 times, the statements said.

The companies, which took subscriptions from retail and institutional investors on Friday, will raise a total of 6.68 billion yuan from the IPOs — more than double the 3.16 billion initially sought.

NT dollar gains on greenback

The NT dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.099 to close at NT$32.376.